By: Ruihao Rick Shan
San Jose, California- This April, President Joe Biden officially signed a bill that would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the app or risk it being banned. This comes after lawmakers expressed concern that ByteDance may give sensitive user data to the Chinese government.
Background Information
Signed by President Joe Biden on April 24th, the law gives ByteDance until January 19th to sell TikTok. This law is a result of the worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access the data of Americans or use the app for heightened surveillance of users.
However, despite Chinese ownership, TikTok has always denied being associated with the Chinese Government. The app is owned by TikTok LLC, but is owned by the technology giant ByteDance LTD.
As a China-based company, ByteDance has to comply with China’s national intelligence laws. In 2018, China amended a cyber security law that says “All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law”. That means ByteDance and its subsidiaries are legally bound to help with gathering intelligence.
Lawmakers are also worried China may use TikTok to spread misinformation. TikTok is designed so that people who have interacted with certain content are given similar content in the future. For example, if someone watches a news video from TikTok, they will then have similar videos recommended to them.
Not all the “news” on TikTok is true though. Anyone with a Social Media account can become a “news” source. The algorithm recommends people false information with the hope that the viewer would be interested. The viewer then spreads the information to their friends using the share button. The process then repeats itself, rapidly spreading misinformation across the site.
Other Bans on TikTok
Other countries have expressed concerns similar to those of the U.S. In 2020, the Indian government banned TikTok after claiming Chinese apps posed a threat to India’s security. Similarly, Australia, Canada, Denmark, the European Union, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK have all banned TikTok from government devices.
Response to the Ban
TikTok has filed a lawsuit against the United States Government claiming that this ban is unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment free speech right. Further, TikTok argues that it is impossible to transfer its code to another company in 9 months. They claim new engineers would need years to familiarize themselves with the code. The company also claims that in order to keep TikTok running, engineers would need access to Byte Dance software, which the new law won’t allow.